What critical frameworks have been developed for analysing socially engaged practices and how can they be applied?

Analysing the critical fields for participation in socially engaged practices.

By Max Dovey

Contents

INTRODUCTION 3

PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGED ART 4CRITICAL FRAMEWORKS 5CRITICAL DISCUSSION 8

WORKS 11

RE-ENACTMENT 11FOOD 14POETICS OF PARTICIPATION 17

CONCLUSION 21

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What critical frameworks have been developed for analysing socially engaged

practises and how can they be applied?

Analysing the critical fields for participation in socially engaged practises.

This paper will explore the conflicting theoretical models for analysis of

participation in socially engaged art forms. It will address two key questions; what

frameworks of evaluation are in play when such practices are discussed and how

socially engaged art forms can be analysed. The idea of ‘relational art’ has become

very widely used in recent years but suffers from a lack of critical definition. It is

used to describe almost any art based event involving interaction between groups

of people. I have chosen three critical writers whose recent publications have

established different criteria for analyzing socially engaged art. I will not discuss

the language of participation rather its prominent role and function within socially

active artworks in relation to the critical theory. By aligning different examples of

works with these theoretical positions an overview will be developed that identifies

conflicting aspects in the area of discussion. Finally I will try to resolve some of

these conflicts by discussing their relevance in the wider context of participatory

culture, presenting an overview of how these critical theories have developed our

understanding of new public art. Public art works that are based around audience

interaction and engagement (with each other and the space) that reflect a current

urgency in participatory culture. By turning to these expanding fields of

participatory culture, a wider understanding of how these critical positions can

benefit trends in contemporary arts and culture. Technological advances have

enabled publishing and producing of individual content that in turn has affected art

and its audiences. Public interactive art is becoming more audience led and

collective based, for example, sound-trails and flash-mobs all ask the viewer to

participate with the people and place around them. By looking at how the critical

theories that have been developed in relation to socially engaged practises, a

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wider understanding can be developed by addressing these issues in relation to

participatory works inspired by the interactivity of web 2.0.

PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGED ART

‘The nineties saw the emergence of collective forms of intelligence and the

‘network’ mode in the handling of artistic work. The popularisation of the Internet

web, as well as the collectivist practices going on in the techno music scene, and

more generally the increasing collectivisation of cultural leisure, have all produced

a relational approach to the exhibition. Artists look for interlocutors’ (Bourriaud

2002:81).

We are increasingly invited to take part in a wide variety of contemporary art as the

expanding social field becomes focused on de-centralised subjective experience.

Art is no longer something we look at; it is becoming ‘an experience’, something

we do. For example, the individual reading a book from an open Public library

(Clegg & Guttman 1994), swimming across London (Sharrock 2007), dancing in

one of Adrian Piper’s ‘Funk Lessons’ (1982-84) or sliding down the ‘Test Site’

(Höller 2006) at Tate Modern. The direct engagement in these pieces emancipates

the viewer into social exchange and a shared environment. This essay will look at

participation in the social field where communication and inter-subjective exchange

is integral to the piece. It is possible to see this interest in the social field as part of

a wider development of ‘participatory culture’, where consumers are invited to help

‘co create’ new experiences, such as products or artefacts; for example, digital

media.

However, this use of the social field in art practice is not new. The boundary

between art and life, author and audience has been explored by many art

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movements of the 20th century. The avant-garde have often tried to break down the

barrier between artist and audience. The Dada season during Paris in 1921 saw

many performances, encouraging the public to become part of the jury in the mock

trial of Maurice Barres (Breton, 1921). Allan Kaprow’s Happenings and Fluxus

performances focused on the interactions and social reality that came from

participating in public spaces. Similarly the Situationist’s ‘constructed situations’

were, for Guy Debord, direct modes for audience activation and engagement that

challenged the passive nature of the Society of the Spectacle (1967). Happenings

of the 1960s and real time durational performance events dissolved artist audience

relations, shifting aesthetics towards the involvement of audiences’ subjective

experience. Active collaborative discourse within social parameters has also been

present in activist art and community arts practices. Participation can be mapped

within community based work and activist work as a mechanism for social change.

From public art to commercial work a new series of terms has been generated,

Relational Aesthetics, New Genre Public Art, Participatory Art, Interactive Art and

Process Based. All the works presented in this paper are centred on participation

with communities and the public, the critical positions I consider map a new terrain

for critical analysis not a history of participation. Participation within public

interactive art will then be discussed to understand the progression of the critical

fields.

CRITICAL FRAMEWORKS

Three key writers have constituted the contemporary theoretical discussion around

the social art field. Nicholas Bourriaud’s Esthétique Relationnelle(1998), translated

into Relational Aesthetics (2002) presented and defined a European movement

into social relations within Fine Art practice. Californian academic Grant H. Kester

released Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art in

2004. Kester attempts to identify socially engaged practises as part of a wider

social praxis, defining his theoretical position as ‘dialogical art’. London based critic

Claire Bishop (2004 & 2006) shares dialogue with both writers analysing their

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critical positions in the context of contemporary art criticism. Not all the writers

explicitly theorise participation in art instead they provide a new theoretical

framework for the analysis of participatory projects in the social field. These

recently published texts develop theoretical analysis of socially based work in

contemporary art. They each present areas for evaluation based upon previous

modern theorists and movements. By applying these critical frameworks to specific

pieces I will present common values and contradictions in a spectrum of critical

approaches in order to answer the research questions. By discussing their critical

positions to specifically participatory art an understanding of how their frameworks

can provide criteria to analyse recent interactive public art.

Bishop’s two key contributions are Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics (2004)

and The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents (2006). Her basic position

can be summarised by this quotation;

There can be no failed, unsuccessful, unresolved, or boring works of

collaborative art because all are equally essential to the task of

strengthening the social bond. While I am broadly sympathetic to that

ambition, I would argue that it is also crucial to discuss, analyze, and

compare such work critically as art (2006).

Bishop commented on both Bourriaud and Kester in these two articles, articulating

the need for a new basis of judgement. In The Social Turn Bishop presents a

critical conflict that emerges from collective or community engaged practices

between ethics and aesthetics. Bishop argues that socially lead projects are too

often misjudged due to ethical, political and social concerns. Bishop warns that the

ethical examination of socially engaged work lets the aesthetic become sacrificed

for social change. She sees the critical development as an urgent ‘critical task’

particularly important in Britain where New Labour policies like PAT10 have

encouraged all publicly funded projects towards the goal of social inclusion

(Bishop, 2006). In Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics she focuses on

Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics, her main criticisms are that the structural analysis

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of the work is a restricted aesthetic judgment. She argues that the value or impact

of the work presented in Relational Aesthetics is restrictive both in form and

context. The work does not achieve the freedom of dialogue that it claims to due

to a prescribed social attitude and specific context.

Bourriaud’s key book is not without its concern for what Bishop might call ethics, or

politics, ‘the enemy we have to fight first and foremost is embodied in a social form:

it is the spread of the supplier/client relations to every human level of human life,’

(2002: 83). Bourriaud presents prolific artists such as Felix Gonzalez Torres, Liam

Gillick and Rirkrit Tiravanija, arguing for a collective aesthetic of inter subjectivities

that locates itself within the dynamic of the social network the work then produces.

The work that is presented should be analyzed by assessing the freedom of the

dialogue, and how that dialogue creates a space that both artist and audience can

co-create. Influenced by French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari aesthetics is

analysed not by its ‘conviviality’ or its politics but on its ability to open possibility. In

Relational Aesthetics the social composition in regards to achieving open

exchange and dialogue with one another should be the focus for critical analyses,

‘How does this work permit me to enter into dialogue, could I exist, and how, in the

space that it defines?’ (2002:109). Bourriaud establishes an aesthetic based upon

the process and mechanics of social structure(s), their ability to engage as a model

for exchange, rather than a model for change. Bourriaud’s critical position is

centred on how a viewer can participate in the social realm. Evaluating a work

would therefore involve a focus on the formal processes through which participant

dialogue is created.

In Conversation Pieces: Community And Communication in Modern art (2004)

Kester’s critical model theorizes the process of communicative exchange, calling

this ‘dialogical art’ that continually emerges from sustained engagement with a

community. ‘What is the new locus of judgment? I would contend that it resides in

the condition and character of dialogical exchange itself’ (2000:5).

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Kester’s dialogical model analyses the work primarily in its social and political

context and how ethically the artist and community form a creative response.

Kester maps ‘dialogical art’ from process and audience based work of the

1960’s/70’s (Adrian Piper, John Latham) and the rise of a durational and

ephemeral aesthetic. Kester presents and discusses art that confronts the

definitions (and differences) of art and social activism, focusing on ideas from

Suzanne Lacy and Stephen Willats, whose politically active work open

conversations within communities. Kester argues that a collaborative work or

conversational encounter is not necessarily a work of ‘dialogical art’ unless the

social conditions have been explored collaboratively in the process. If there is no

sustained relationship with a community or group then the artist is unable to

‘catalyze emancipatory insights through dialogue’ (2004:12). The liberating nature

of what emerges from the dialogue is of central importance to Kester. Kester

presents a framework relating to social and political context where the artists

communicative methods are of higher importance than an aesthetic judgement

based on the final work.

CRITICAL DISCUSSION

“One of the ways in which I'm trying to work through an evaluative model for these

practices involves research at the interstices of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the

tactical.”

(Kester: 2007)

The three critical frameworks outlined above clearly overlap in their approaches

and concerns. They share a value system based upon aesthetics, ethics and

politics that situates itself in relation to wider shifts towards participatory culture. In

this section I will compare the different frameworks and expose how they relate to

one another. To uncover these conflicts it is important to present the theorists

criticisms of each other. Firstly the political integration of socially engaged art is of

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dispute between all theorists, followed by the form in which the work can be

analyzed.

Bourriaud argues for a relational form in which events and social structures

generate ‘free exchange’, or what he calls ‘the criterion of co existence’ (2002:82).

These exchanges are generated when we enjoy, ‘ the transposition into experience

of spaces constructed and represented by the artist’ (2002:82). The relational

exchange is the mobilization of democratic social systems, an alternative free from

material based economy and capitalist values. Kester & Bishop praise Bourriaud

for a concise account although they disagree with his political agenda arguing that

‘free exchange’ does little on its own to challenge post industrial economies by, for

example, not dealing with issues of class or property (Kester, 2007). Kester

observes that this change in current art practice is solely a response to post

industrial economies that find all kinds of ways to exploit ‘free exchange’. He also

makes the point that that Bourriaud’s understanding for this is specific to only a

small section of a wider socially active movement, those who go to galleries. The

location of the work Bourriaud presents brings me to Kester’s secondry issue; the

form of relational aesthetics. Although Bourriaud defines the relational form to be

open ended (by citing Umberto Eco’s idea of the poetics of the ‘open work’) the

work Bourriaud presents appears to Kester as ‘choreographed’ and ‘staged’

(Kester, 2007). The communication devices created by artists like (Gillick and

Tiravanija) do not act as a vehicle for wider social or political change, which for

Kester limits their impact to an aesthetic trend in contemporary art. A sustained

analyses of the relations produced cannot be made from the one off events of

Tiravanija. If the relations made in these artworks are of importance perhaps it is

worth considering how the experiences formed can be documented and analyzed.

Without this, Bourriaud’s ‘free exchange’ fails to exist further than gallery shows.

Claire Bishop’s position on Bourriaud is that ‘free exchange’ and ‘co existence’

does not expose difference and conflict, her ‘relational antagonism would be

predicated not on social harmony, but on exposing that which is repressed in

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sustaining the semblance of this harmony’ (2004:275). Bishop then continues to

showcase artists like Santiago Sierra and Thomas Hirschhorn whose socially

collaborative practices produce ‘anxiety’, ‘unease’, and ‘discomfort’. This

preference avoids attempts to understand important aspects of this type of work,

for example, the value of relations between artist and audience made during the

creative process. One can sympathise that analysing the relations between artist

and participant can be challenging. However Bishop’s view may become restricted

as participatory culture continues to prioritise subjective relational experience over

a social exposure aesthetic. In addition certain interactive public art pieces make

attempts to document the subjective experiences. In The Social Turn:

Collaboration and Its Discontents Bishop critiques Kester’s dialogical aesthetic as

restricted by ‘an inflexible mode of political correctness’ (2006:181) going on to

point out that his position ignores the Dadaist and Surrealist movements whose

experiments gave birth to some of ‘the best examples of socially collaborative art’

(2006:181). In a written response featured in May Artforum 2006 Kester expresses

frustration as Bishop neglects to locate this contemporary trend of participatory

practices into a wider praxis of social activism. Poignantly accusing her of ‘policing

the boundaries of legitimate art practise’ (2006:22). Kester then states that her

avoidance of politically active art as typical of ‘mainstream art criticism’

(2006:22).His attacks on both Bourriaud and Bishop do constitute from a typical

argument that arises between mainstream art criticism and outsider art practices.

The significant aspect of Kester’s position is his argument against art for ‘free

exchange’ or social exploitations, rather the importance of the relations produced

in their social context.

We can see from the frameworks in play above that there a number of important

areas of conflict in evaluating ‘relational practice’. One is the importance of the

pleasures involved in ‘free exchange’ and the ways in which it relates to a world

outside the gallery. A second is the question of how the artist works with his or her

subjects, through sustained long-term dialogue or through one off ‘exploitations’.

Finally the problem highlighted by Bishop, that perhaps the most challenging work

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is that which produces antagonism not harmony. The rest of this essay will look at

its second question, (how can we analyse socially engaged art forms?) by aligning

a number of works with the frameworks introduced.

RE-ENACTMENTS

Figure 1 1920 The Red Stage in the storming of the winter palace Petrograd, Russia.

The storming of the winter palace (1920) was a site-specific re-enactment of the

October revolution in Petrograd, Russia with 8000 participants that was apparently

‘Better than the actual storming of the Winter Palace, which was full of confusion’

(Deak 1975). The large-scale performance is an example of early signs of

politicizing participation in Russian constructivism, a collective performance that

directly address its social history. The performance involved 125 ballet dancers,

100 circus people, 1,750 supernumeraries and students, 200 women, 260

secondary actors, and 150 assistants. ‘Spectacles such as these were not merely

designed to commemorate Soviet power. They were meant to usher in a new kind

of theater, one in which the distinction between actor and spectator was broken

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down.’ (Agit Drama, 2002) In the Deak review in Drama Review the writer takes

great pleasure in describing how Kerensky, the director, controlled participants like

‘puppets on a string’ (1975:14). This pointed comment gives some idea of the

history of participation in public art, and how critically the subjective relations

between a collective have been of little importance. Perhaps by presenting The

storming of the Winter Palace (1920) alongside Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave

(2001) the importance of discomfort in Bishop’s argument can be revealed. Deller’s

Turner prize winning performance of the 1984 miners strike in Orgreave directly

involves ex-miners and policeman of the original strike, inviting them to re-

encounter this radical industrial action. The Battle of Orgreave consisted of 200 ex

miners from the strike of 1984 with 800 members of heritage re-enactment

societies alongside residents of Orgreave who watched the performance. The

participation of policeman and Miners from the 1984 strike engages the work with

complex social issues, its important to note that the work makes no attempt to

educate or heal through participating; instead exposing uncertain relations that

surround the original encounter. The 18 months of planning can be viewed in the

documentary made by film maker Mike Figgis who portrays the event as a piece of

factual journalism for television. Bishop presents Deller alongside artists who ‘do

not make the correct ethical choice’ (2006: 183) emphasising her primary concern;

social consensus in collaborative pieces not being of higher importance than

artistic intention.

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Figure 2. Jenkinson, M. 2001 of Dellar, J. scene from The Battle of Orgreave Yorkshire, England.

The re-enactment works are examples of artists or directors working with the public

towards an event. Both directors have maintained artist integrity towards the final

piece that according to Bishop’s framework makes for a clearer aesthetic

judgement. Both pieces ‘use’ the public to stage the event. The Soviet example

illustrates the history of attempts to ‘break down the distinction between actor and

spectator.’ (Agit Drama, 2002) Deller’s work seems to fit Bishop’s ideas; it is not an

opportunity for ‘free exchange’ or an exercise towards social inclusion but a piece

rooted in the memories of the class antagonism of the miners’ strike. The nature of

re enactment is ambiguous and uncomfortable. Although the work was the product

of an 18-month engagement with the community there is no record of the long-term

effect on the participants. The lack of social and relational value in Bishop’s

analogy of Deller’s work emphasises her enjoyment of art that exposes rather than

changes and that is documented within a framed aesthetic.

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Figure 3 Gabie, N.2001 Canteen - Cabot Circus, Bristol (Bristol Alliance).

FOOD

I would like to impose the critical horizons of Bourriaud & Kester to works that are

comprised of the same activity but reveal a conflicting area in evaluative

frameworks. By presenting two artists who present the same activity I can expose

key values in both their criteria for analyzing these works. In these works

Bourriaud’s notion of ‘free exchange’ conflicts with Kester’s value of social context.

As part of a residency, artist Neville Gabie directed a series of creative

interventions with the construction team of the redevelopment of Cabot Circus in

Bristol city centre. One of these projects was Canteen in which Gabie reveals and

explores the varied ethical background of the 20,000 strong workforce through an

organised dinner where each participant brought their national dish. As part of the

same residency (sponsored by the developers Bristol Alliance and Insite Arts)

Gabie collaborated with music composer David Ogden to collect national anthems

from workers that were performed with the city of Bristol Choir. Over 25

contributions from different workers were reordered and written down (some

translated) so that the city of Bristol Choir could perform them on the building site.

Both these projects have different forms of documentation (Canteen – a building

site cookbook and DVD and The Cabot Circus Cantata), but these works demand

the reader to engage with the methods and conditions of social involvement in their

context(s). The social benefits of Gabie’s work are noted ‘Neville has built

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invaluable working relationships across the hugely varied Cabot Circus workforce’

(Bristol Alliance, 2010), and these networks have ensured the success of the work.

These works require the reader to assess how Gabie has shaped his tactical

approach with artistic intention, the dinner for example provides participants

creative opportunity to emphasise the subject he is exploring, in this case migration

within a globalised workforce. This is the type of participatory art that requires

Kester’s critical perspective, the dialogical aesthetic.

Figure 4 Tiravanija, R.2007 The Opening Of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 1992 (free) at David Zwirner Gallery, New York.

Perhaps I can highlight the intelligence of Neville Gabie’s approach by comparing it

of Rirkrit Tiravanija, a U.S based artist who is celebrated by Nicholas Bourriaud in

Relational Aesthetics for (amongst other works) cooking with audiences.

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Tiravanija’s art ‘has as its goal the transformation of public spaces into social

places that celebrate convivial interaction between people’ (Hoptnan 1987). The

conviviality of the environment installed is what interests Bourriaud, how

participating in Tiravanija’s work opens up encounters and interactions. In untitled

free in 1992 Tiravanija questioned hierarchies of art economy by cooking for

members of the pubic. This touring dining experience directly comments on the art

institution whilst pioneering Bourriaud’s idea of the artist generating ‘free

exchange’. In his 1996 work untitled Tomorrow is Another Day Tiravanija built a

wooden construction of his New York apartment in the Kolnischer Kunstvereinmm

inviting members of the public to co-inhabit this shared space 24 hours a day.

Kester specifically attacks this work by including accounts from artists Jay Koh and

Stefan Roemer. In a video response to the work they describe their frustration

because as the same time as Tiravanija’s show the local the police were

dispersing homeless people away from the area (Kester 2004:105). Bourriaud

argues that ‘it is not a matter of representing angelic worlds, but of producing the

conditions thereof’ (2002:83) through this kind of ‘art of exchange’. Kester on the

other hand sees this work as stopping at the door of the gallery and therefore not

fulfilling his criteria.

These two artists together (Tiravanija & Gabie) expose a wide spectrum from

community practise to fine art and although they both cook with their participants

there work must be analysed in regards to the relevant critical approach. There is a

degree of appropriateness that must be applied when evaluating the artworks; by

presenting these works alongside their critical models their different evaluative

frameworks are made clear. Kester’s critical model values the quality of the

dialogue that the communicative methods form in relation to the social context and

would therefore seem like an appropriate way to analyse Gabie’s work at Cabot

Circus. Bishop argues that if Bourriaud presents Tiravanija’s work as political then

its political meaning is only permeable through the artist’s concept of a communal

harmonious social space. This is essential when considering Neville Gabie’s work

and revealing the issues surrounding Tiravanija. Without a clear social praxis the

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work shows no indication of feeding a dialogue back into its social context. The

communicative methods applied relating to the social context are then isolated and

carry no further social or political benefit apart from within the limited networks that

are interested in it. A close examination of Gabie’s work supports Kester and

Bishop’s critique of Bourriaud’s support for Tiravanija.

The Poetics of Participation

By presenting two modern works that rely on the sensation of participation the

legacy of the ‘Relational Aesthetic’ criteria will be discussed. Both these works are

distant from the areas discussed previously however they will bring this critical

debate up to date. The two public installations both operate on a pleasurable

participatory experience, the interactions generating excitement from social

encounters with strangers in public. These works are defined and situated by the

rise of participation in media and culture in society. How can these critical writings

be adapted to become relevant to something that has changed from being a

radical intervention to becoming part of popular culture. This chapter will discuss

the relevant aspects of the writers discussed in regards to two contemporary art

works that represent the tendency of ‘participatory culture’ in public artwork.

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Figure 5 Buni, C. 2009 Play Me I’m Yours Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The installation of old pianos in public spaces in cities such as Brazil, Canada and

originally UK generates instant ‘inter-subjective’ pleasure and social interaction.

Play me, I’m yours by Luke Jerram turns urban environments into playful

performance spaces with the installation of a public piano. Local authorities around

the world have asked Jerram to litter their city with pianos because of their ability to

act as a catalyst for expression, interaction and communication. The subjective

pleasure in interacting with others in a collective public space is part of a bigger

movement of participatory culture. In this light it is interesting to return to

Bourriaud’s aesthetic criteria and look at Play me, I’m yours and its ability to

generate a shared communal environment formed around interaction and

exchange. Participatory culture has been encouraged by web 2.0 and mobile

technology, allowing virtual networks to be organised in the form of physical

collectives of people from flash mobs to protests. The thrill found in forming

relationships through unknown encounters with strangers creates a pleasurable

sense of empowerment both in the encounter with strangers and the feeling of

taking over a public space. What is important to recognise is that Jerram’s

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installation of a piano takes no sustained community research nor does it have to

highlight social tensions by focussing on ‘antagonism’, it simply opens exchange

between networks of people. The simplicity of the intervention turns out to be a

fruitful way of generating interaction and expression, in Bourriaud’s terms, ‘free

exchange’. Furthermore, Jerram continually curates and broadcasts stories that

are generated from the public pianos from meeting future wives to wanted

criminals (Jerram, 2010). The technologies of Web 2.0 are utilised to collect and

track the photos, videos and press coverage of the installations. People use the

pianos to make music promos, to form community music events, to link between

different cities, to form impromptu concerts. Once these online creations are

identified as the artwork itself new possibilities for of curatorial interventions come

into being. The user-generated documentations gives the work a permanent

context for these ephemeral encounters. The piano in this context is like a node in

a network that facilitates encounters and social relations with more accessibility

and fulfilment than the work Bourriaud presents. The work is public and open to

anyone with any level of keyboard skill or a willingness to sing or dance. The

mobility of the pianos is significantly similar to Bourriaud’s writings about creating

mirco-topias within social spaces. The documentation and broadcasting of the

connections made not only make the work more intricate and accessible but

provide critics with documents to analyse the work.

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Figure 6 Monkman, K. and Wexler, T. 2010.Congregation Rockbound Art Museum, Shanghai, China.

The final piece I want to bring into the discussion is KMA’s Congregation, an

interactive light projection for public spaces. The piece is described to be a ‘ballet

designed, choreographed and composed entirely for pedestrians’ (KMA

Congregation: 2010). Spotlights react to pedestrian movement connecting

strangers to form a collective public dance between strangers. This piece, like Play

Me, I’m Yours, generates inter-subjective exchange between strangers forming a

creative collective of public participants. Like Jerram’s work it also offers the

participants a pleasure in the creative reclamation of public space. The co-creation

of Bourriaud’s ‘micro-topias’ (2002:13) (social communal environments) is more

adventurous outside the gallery and therefore a wide subjective sensation

becomes possible for the participant. Their ability to open human relations through

participation is considerably better than the work of Tiravanija, the public setting

progressively liberates participants that is unattainable within the art gallery. When

looking at these works in regards to Bishop and Kester’s critical frameworks it can

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be assumed that there value systems would not appreciate aspects of the work.

They have no sense of a sustained dialogue with a community nor any particular

interest in antagonism or ambiguity. But by looking at art’s relational value these

works generate more possibility for the participant, and are mobile interventions

that can create communities instantly anywhere. They offer a sense of

empowerment to the audience by asking them to participate and become involved

with others in an act of collective expression.

CONCLUSION

Throughout this essay conflicts in critical analysis have been revealed through

applying them to participatory art projects. Beginning with an overview of each

writers value system or criteria for analysis I then proceed to discuss their

criticisms of each other. Revolution and re-enactment presents the politically active

nature of some public, participatory performances alongside Bishop’s value of

aesthetic over social relation(s). Bishop values art with people that exposes and

uncovers the knots within the social fabric. Following on from that to discuss work

involving food, alongside both Kester and Bourriaud’s critical viewpoints. These

two works by Gabie & Tiravanija highlighted the wide difference in the critical

considerations when analyzing the work. Tiravanija’s work represents Bourriaud’s

focus on the construction of social environments that develop from ‘free exchange’.

Gabie uses a sustained relationship to curate individual responses of participants

in relation to the collective. The final chapter brings in new works that portray

Bourriaud’s ideas but in public art contexts using digital technologies of web 2.0

and interaction. The relevance of the relational aesthetic is important to this work

but the expansion of the critical analysis into popular participatory practices is of

greater significance.

Bourriaud’s progressive model for analysis does provide a critical framework for

understanding socially based artworks. The introduction of the relational aesthetic

defined a new area of work to analyse social practices in the 1990s. The way in

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which Bourriaud encourages us to look at relational art ‘how does this work permit

me to enter a dialogue’ (2004:109) based on the artist’s ability to open possibility

gives readers, critics and secondary audiences criteria to judge. However the

structural analysis over social context (e.g. How the work opens choices, not what

the choices are) leaves Bourriaud’s theory and the work he discussed defined by a

select group of artists. So the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija and Liam Gillick (with their

audience) produce social scenarios to develop human relations in gallery spaces.

Unfortunately these ‘open ended’ relations do not venture further than repeatedly

circulating the ‘but is it art’ questions to the same art demographic. Bourriaud often

describes relational artwork to produce ‘micro-utopias’ and social ‘interstices’

(2004: pg 13, pg 70) that is how Relational Aesthetics should be viewed, a small

section of a much wider terrain of social art practises. The critical framework that

Bourriaud has developed does benefit the analyses of work by KMA and Luke

Jerram. These recent artworks reside so much in the fluidity between human

exchanges that an observed ‘reading’ of the work becomes challenging. A

secondary analyses would look at the formal structure to measure the success of

the work, for example, how many participants and in how many cities has the work

been performed. As participatory art strives further into subjective experience

Bourriaud’s critical model will become the easiest way to analyse the work(s).

Bourriaud’s model appears in the communication art of Jerram & KMA through

members of the public participating with an installation that encourages play and

exchange. Whilst the public setting puts the Bourriaud criteria in a more

progressive art practise these playful public installations could also be criticised for

lacking aesthetic criteria.

Bishop makes strong critique of the work in Relational Aesthetics but her desired

social aesthetic for art that exposes contradiction rather than produces connection

leaves her critical position at risk. Her brash accusation of all art seen to be

‘strengthening the social bond’ (Bishop 2006) neglects to acknowledge the

popularity of participation as cultural communication. Installations like

Congregation and Play Me, I’m Yours that generate interaction in social space are

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quickly disregarded by Bishop, because they are ‘predicated on social harmony’

(Bishop 2004) The excitement of dancing with a stranger and the discourse that

follows gives participating an explosive realm of subjective experience that cannot

be written off so quickly. Collaboration, co creation, audience as producer,

interaction all make participation popular and do not cost any sacrifice on behalf of

the artist or the art. Participatory practices have the potential for political

challenges and interventions to emerge through the inter subjective experiences of

the audience/users. This would still depend on the artist’s aim and intention. For

instance Gabie’s Canteen engages with the politics of globalisation through its

participatory process. Socially engaged art is reinventing itself as a fluid process

that facilitates subjective experience through producing collective social

environments. This tendency shows no sign of declining for example recent shows

at Hayward Gallery at the Southbank (Move: Choreographing you) or public

performance work of Blast Theory or Duncan Speakman.

This kind of collective event based work that owes as much to the flash mob as it

does to the gallery poses significant challenges to Bishop’s modernist critical

framework. The discourse that runs throughout social practices makes it harder to

locate and identify the art and the artist. The fluidity of these practises means the

art cannot be ‘framed’. In addition to this the launch into subjective experience

through participation submerges the ‘signature’ of the artist and the work sacrifices

identity for accessibility. The fact that a piece like Jerram’s Play Me, I’m Yours can

move from the artists control to City authority marketing opportunity beyond the

control of the artist also shows the problems with work such as this. Without

identifiable authorship and form the work is open to Kester & Bishop’s critique that

it just celebrates ‘the human bond’ without any critical purpose. The artworks’

ability to facilitate encounters and interactions should be analysed in relation to

how the artist shapes these exchanges to communicate something. The frequent

(one off) sensational encounters that these works create between people and the

sustained relations that Gabie curates have to be compared. The relations

developed by Gabie appear to be more sustained, tactile and productive than the

one off encounters of interactive public art. Such a comparison leads me, finally, to

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support Kester’s critical analyses for developing participatory artworks that form

from the continual facilitation of relationships between groups of people. Gabie’s

work has a multi-layered complexity and a focused power that comes from a

sustained set of working relationships rather than the fleeting encounters facilitated

by KMA or Luke Jerram. Although the documentation of these one - off encounters

provide readers the ability to analyse the work, they exist only as snap-shots of the

relational art, whilst the social relations produced by Gabie in Canteen will grow

and develop after the event has taken place. This is why Kester’s durational

analytical framework that is composed of ‘sustained encounters’ presents new

ways in which this work can be read. Kester’s critical model is the only one that

expresses flexibility between social, political and ethical concerns. Measuring the

sustained relations between artist and audience allows an aesthetic to emerge that

reflects both antagonism and connection. The continual output of participatory

expressions creates a collective aesthetic that needs an analysis taking account of

the long-term durational impact of the project. The rise of participatory culture

should look at how the artist can present the discourse from a social intervention.

The role of the artist should not be just to simply facilitate dialogue or subjective

experience but to say something with it.

Max Dovey

Word count 6,081

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